Killzone 2 Alternate Ending
by Pepper527
Summary: The fate of two planets hinges on this. What IF Rico had controlled his temper, followed his orders and let Visari live? Would it finally bring the ISA's long, tragic war with Helghan to a close? How would it impact those around Rico? Would his comrades finally be avenged? Would the Helghast finally surrender? Or does Autarch Visari have one last trick up his sleeve?
1. Rico

This is another story that had been forming in my head for quite a while. I decided to take a break from The Young Soldier's Mask and work on something a bit easier. As the title states, this is my "What If" scenario of how Killzone 2 would've ended if Rico hadn't killed Visari. Of course, it will have all the familiar characters in it (Sev, Rico, Narville, etc.) and maybe some original ones as well. Also, I slightly altered the part where Garza dies to where his death wasn't Rico's fault, so that maybe you can be a little more sympathetic to Rico. Anyway, read the story, tell me what you like and what you think I should work on. Enjoy!

Staff Sgt. Rico Velasquez

We did it. We finally put him down. My partner Sev and I loomed over the corpse of Colonel Radec, the sadistic, heartless bastard who massacred thousands of brave men and women of the ISA Army. Over the past four years, those murderous, red-eyed animals, the Helghast, had stolen far more from me than I could've ever imagined: my first platoon of men back on Vekta; Garza and Natko, two of my best soldiers; and Jan Templar, the greatest war hero who our planet would ever know…and the only officer I could ever trust. Now, in just a few minutes' time, _all _their deaths will be avenged. The man responsible left with his disgusting mutant organs hanging from his blood-stained, bullet-riddled corpse on the floor. Scolar Visari, the Helghast' so-called "emperor", will be mine.

After I spat on Radec's rotting corpse and quickly reloaded my LMG, Sev and I raced down the final hallway to Visari's throne.

"Killin' that son-of-a-bitch for Jan was a good start." I snarled.

"Now where's Visari? I wanna break that motherfucker's face myself. Time to finish this thing now."

As we neared the Emperor's hall, we came across a whole pile of dead Helghast troops just beyond the entrance.

"Looks like they killed themselves", I assumed. "Classy. Saves me the effort…or maybe that sick fuck Radec killed them for practice. Either way, they got what they deserved."

I didn't care how they died; to me, a dead Hig is a dead Hig, and Visari will just be one last dead Hig to add to the bodycount.

I quickly turned to Sev and called him. "Come on. Let's go collect their boss."

We reached the end of the hall and entered Visari's enormous throne chamber. The entire room was a giant, empty cavern with little inside it except two gigantic Helghan triads on the floor and the ceiling, a large mural of a Hig soldier standing behind a group of "patriots", and two flights of stairs on either side leading up to a small executive desk on the far side of the room. The man himself was standing with his back turned, staring out through his windows at his ravaged, desolate wasteland of a city. There were no soldiers, no bodyguards, no one left to fight who we hadn't killed already. It was just me, Sev, and Visari, and I swear to God, one of us wouldn't be leaving this palace alive.

Sev raised his assault rifle at Visari and started to carry out the ISA's pointless "arresting protocols".

"Scolar Visari!"

He paused for the man's attention.

"Scolar Visari, I'm placing you under arrest under Article 27 of the-"

"And who are you, soldier?" The Emperor spoke in a harsh, guttural voice that was full of the same narcissistic Helghan hubris that drove his soldiers to kill us.

"Sevchenko. Sergeant 1st class."

"A sergeant? They send a sergeant to take Visari? Are your leaders all really so…afraid?" He slowly walked down the left flight of stairs and stopped in front of us.

"War's over, Visari," Sev spat back. "You lost!"

"Really, sergeant? And who won? The cowards who commanded you and your comrades to come here and die? The Helghast have lost nothing! We fight for who we are! We wear our wounds like badges of honor! Helghan is ours, and we will die before we let it fall to plunderers."

Typical fascist pig. The old bastard is either delusional or a big fuckin' narcissist. Visari _knows _that his army's failed him, he _knows _that he's lost, he _knows _that the ISA are on the verge of winning this war, and even then, he still looks down on us Vektans as "inferior beings ripe for destruction."

"That is why" Visari continued, "Your leaders dare not make a martyr of me. Your fleet burned…your friends butchered…and _you_ become a hero for saving my life? Does that sound like a victory to you, Sgt. Sevchenko?" He stepped in front of the large mural I mentioned earlier.

"Son-of-a-bitch.", I angrily muttered. Every word—every single repulsive, self-serving word that came out of this motherfucker's mouth made my blood boil furiously. I just had to kill this man. No, I _needed_ to kill him! I will never be able to rest until this coward's blood spills all over the floor! I tightened my grip on my machine gun, preparing myself to slaughter Visari.

Sev spoke once again, "Good men have died. People have died—on _your _side, as well as ours! I'll see you rot in a cell for it! You'll pay for what you've done!"

"For what!?" Visari roared, "For giving my people pride!? Purpose!?" He turned towards the mural and raised his arms in front of it. "We've built this great nation from nothing!" He lowered his arms and faced us once again. "Take me, and Helghan will dissolve into chaos! The ISA war machine…"

At that point I wasn't even listening to the bastard anymore. I couldn't stand another word of his little "speech" without completely losing my shit. He turned and walked toward Sev and I again before getting close into Sev's face.

"YOU HAVE NOT WON! Visari barked. YOU WILL NE-"

"SHUT THE FUCK UP!"

*TWACK* I slammed my right fist into Visari's jaw, knocking him onto the floor. I screamed, "How dare you spout that self-righteous, egotistical bullshit in my face!" I stomped towards Visari and planted my foot on his neck. I stared into his cold green eyes, arrogant and defiant as ever. "You send thousands of soldiers to do die doin' your dirty work—you launch a fuckin' NUKE against you _own city_ and you're callin' _us_ the fuckin' cowards!? This is where it ends! I've seen too many good men die in this war to let you crawl away alive!"

"Then finish it, soldier." He wheezed. "Kill me. Take your revenge."

"As you wish, 'my lord'."

Finally. This is it. The one moment I've dreamed about since we'd landed on this Godforsaken planet. I pointed my LMG at Visari's wrinkled face, my finger craving to pull the trigger. Just one shot and the Emperor's brains would be splattered all over the floor. Templar. Garza. Natko. All their deaths would be avenged. Nothing was gonna ruin this moment. Just. One. Shot.

"STAND DOWN, RICO!"

I quickly turned around and, to my horror, found Sev pointing his assault rifle right at me!

"Sev! "What the Hell are you—"

"STAND! DOWN! "Do _not_ kill Visari! Our orders are to take him _alive_! You know that!"

"Fuck our orders! You think I'm gonna let this worm walk away while he's still breathin'!? After all the shit he's put us through!? All the men and women he's put under!? Besides, you wanna see him die just as much as I do!"

Sev retorted, "Yes, I wanna see him die too, Rico. But not here! Not like this! There are more people in this war than you and me! Right now, there's thousands of brave ISA soldiers who lost something precious to them on four years ago on Vekta! That sick fuck Visari is a war criminal that's responsible for the slaughter of over 40,000 civilians! Men, women, and children are fucking _dead_ because of this him! All of the Vektans who died in this war died so we could have a chance to avenge what Visari did to our planet! That's why we need to arrest him, Rico- so that he'll be forced to answer for his crimes in front of the ISA court! And then, once his trial's over, _then _we execute him, so that all the people who survived the Invasion can have the justice they want! If you kill him now, Rico, you'll take that justice away from them! From all of us! Would you seriously want to do that?"

Dammit. Sev had a good point. If I fry Visari here, I'd completely undermine everything our soldiers fought and died for. I would be known as the one asshole that not only failed to follow his orders, but completely fucked up our entire operation, and caused many more good men to pay the price with their lives. On top of it all, the ISA High Command would become so infuriated at my failure that they'd certainly court-martial me for assassinating an unarmed prisoner and have me executed. Reluctantly, I lowered my LMG, lifted my boot off of Visari's chest, and jerked him off of the floor by his uniform.

I slowly walked towards Sev on my right and snarled "The only reason I'm lettin' that bastard live is because you told me to, so do whatever the fuck you want with him. I'll meet you outside." Orders or not, I was still pissed off over the fact that that pompous coward Visari is still alive, but at least he'll get his due punishment when we haul him back home. I stopped at the huge, gaping exit on the south side of Visari's chamber and waited for Sev to arrest his ass so we could finally wrap this war up and go home. As I stood outside the chamber, I took a long look at the large battalion of ISA grunts stationed downstairs. Like me, all of them were waiting eagerly to bring the "Emperor" to justice for what he did to us. I quickly replayed one of Visari's boasts during his little "speech" to us: "Your fleet burned…your friends butchered…and _you_ become a hero for saving my life!?" Strangely, I began to feel a small smirk cracking on the left side of my face. Visari was right about one thing: by saving his life…I _did _become a hero.

Rico Velasquez  
November 2359  
Pyrrhus Remains, Helghan

All right! That's the end of Rico's side of the KZ2 Alternate ending! Please, comment and review this story and tell me its strong points and what I need to make stronger. Personally, I thought that the ending may have been the weakest part of it (writer's block), but nevertheless, all _constructive _criticism is allowed.  
WARNING: FLAME COMMENTS AND TROLLING WILL NOT BE TOLARATED!


	2. Sev

**Sergeant 1****st**** Class Tomas "Sev" Sevchenko  
November 2359  
Outside Visari's Palace, Helghan**

**** "All right." I began. "Let's start this over. Scolar Visari, I am placing you under ISA arrest under Article 27 of the Stockholm Treaty: Building and amassing military forces with intent against the interests of Earth and her colonies. If you resist or try to escape, you will held accountable and executed immediately."****

I walked up towards Visari's back and grabbed him tightly by his forearms. With my right hand, I reached into my utility bag and brought out the MRBs (Magnetic Restraining Bracelets), the new standard tool for arresting and capturing war criminals. MRBs weren't like the traditional handcuffs used Vektan and Terran police forces; once placed on the suspect's arms, MRBs magnetically bind together and hold the asshole's arms in place with enough force to restrain a fully-grown gorilla—a fitting choice for an animal like Visari.

"Let's go, you son-of-a-bitch." I pointed my rifle at the Emperor's head and urged him to move towards the exit where Rico was standing in wait for us. The two of us exited downstairs from the dark, empty throne chamber and entered the sea of fellow grunts stationed just below us. The other ISA boys looked basically the same as me and Rico; they wore olive-green, Earth-styled uniforms adorned with dark grey steel helmets on their heads and glowing, light blue PDAs on their torsos. Me and Rico wore essentially the same thing only neither of us wore helmets and Rico was in his old Legionnaires uniform from when he and Templar drove off the Higs from Vekta four years ago.

As we herded our prize down towards the convoy, I began to see the expressions of boredom and anxiety on our soldiers' faces turn to those of shock, awe, and disbelief. I guess it's not every day you get to see the most powerful war criminal in history get his ass kicked and handcuffed by two regular grunts. Then again, me and Rico were members of Alpha Squad, Colonel Templar's hand-picked unit of badass ISA commandoes, so I guess we weren't _regular_ grunts.

"Holy shit!" One soldier exclaimed, "They just captured frikkin' Visari!"

"I can't believe it!" cried another. "_Two fucking guys_ wasted Radec _and_ Visari's personal guard!?"

"Unbelievable! We're finally gonna end this shitstorm and go home!"

Immediately, the soldiers' shouts of shock and amazement towards us became those of mocking and scorn towards Visari.

"A lot of fucking good nuking your own city did ya, asshole!?"

"So much for your 'Helghan superiorioty'!"

"Maybe next time, you'll think twice before fucking with the ISA!"

"The Vektan War Court's gonna kick your ass, Visari!"

"Your days are numbered, Visari, and the number's pretty damn small!"

"Go to Hell, you prick!"

One particularly pissed off soldier screamed, "My wife's dead and my sister's in the hospital because of you! I can't wait 'til we haul your ass back home so we can see it executed on live TV!"

When we finally passed the stairway, the commotion behind me culminated in a loud chanting of "ISA! ISA! ISA!". You get the idea. It was a bit amusing to see a bunch of grown-ass soldiers being reduced to a bunch of middle-school kids that have just won their first football game, but I didn't blame them.

Rico and I dragged Visari towards the vast Avenger Convoy parked in front of the palace, where we saw Captain Narville, our field commander and leader of the convoy, giving orders to a younger-looking grunt.

"Make sure those HAMRs are in pristine condition, Hooper. I want us to be able to take out any leftover Higs that might give us trouble."

"Yes, sir!" shouted the younger soldier.

Narville then turned his head toward us and marveled at our accomplishment. "Well, well, well," he said to Visari with pride and satisfaction. "I never thought in my life I'd get to see the 'great and powerful' Scolar Visari in the flesh. How's it feel to know that you've lost? That not even your petrusite cannons and your bitch Colonel Radec could stop us!? That the ISA's gonna end this little conquest of yours and finally give our planet the justice it deserves!?"

Visari looked into the Captain's eyes with fury and responded, "You speak of justice, but who are you to condemn us? Centuries ago, your people stole from us what was rightfully ours and banished us to this hellish planet! Does that sound like justice to you!?"

"Times have changed Visari." The Captain replied with quiet anger. "Vekta belongs to us now. It was _your_ people who rose up against the United Colonial Nations in the first place and caused the rivalry between us. It was _your_ people who launched an unprovoked invasion on Vekta and massacred thousands of civilians. It was _your_ people who caused many broken, angry men and women to join the counter-invasion for revenge. _You _asked for this war, Visari. We didn't. The Vektan War Court will crucify you for all the crimes against you committed—not just against our planet…" He forcibly grabbed the Emperor and made him face the shattered nuclear crater that was now Pyrrhus. "…but against your own." "The difference between you and us, Visari: we don't drop nukes on our cities." Narville finished.

Narville then called out the names of two soldiers. "Douglas! Forrester!" They quickly rushed toward him and saluted. "Here. Get this cocksucker out of my sight on onboard an APC. Make sure he comes to no harm; he'll be getting plenty of that on Vekta."

"Right away, sir!"

"Let's go you son-of-a-bitch."

The two grunts grabbed Visari tightly on either side by his arms and walked him towards the rear of the convoy.

With Visari gone, Narville turned again to face me and Rico. "Sevchenko! Velasquez!" We hurriedly lowered our guns, stood at attention, and saluted him. "Sir!" We shouted simultaneously.

Narville let out a small, pleasant smile and chuckled, "At ease, boys. Save the formal shit for the higher-ups who'll award you your medals on Vekta." I gotta say, it was pretty damn weird to see the Captain actually smile for once. Narville was known among the ISA for being a stern, strict, no-bullshit officer to his subordinates. Just hours ago, Rico and I saw Narville yell at a squad of grunts who'd apparently lost the will to fight after our flagship, the New Sun, was destroyed. I even heard some of his troops secretly nicknamed him "Captain Hardass". When you're around an officer like that for so long, you begin to wonder if he's even _capable_ of showing any kind of compassion.

Anyway, after we stopped saluting, Narville once again spoke. "You two have no idea how goddamn proud I am to be your commander. You've have done more than I or anyone else in the ISA could ever have asked. You came to this shithole, fought through God knows how many Helghast troops, took out that bastard Radec, and captured possibly the most notorious and dangerous war criminal in modern history! Having Visari as a hostage is gonna give us the ultimate leverage; the Higs'll have no choice but to surrender so that their precious "Autarch" won't become roadkill. Thanks to you, we're just one broadcast away from ending this operation in total victory. You've done me proud, boys. 50 years from now, the two of you are gonna be remembered as the men who took down the Emperor."

"Holy shit!" I thought. "We're receiving praise from Captain Hardass himself!" I struggled to keep my stoic, military expression from breaking into a huge, childlike smile. I looked over to my left towards Rico. He was doing a better job of keeping his cool, but I could tell he was thinking the same thing.

"I'm…ecstatic to hear that, sir!" I exclaimed like a ten-year-old at his first baseball game. "Uh…what are our orders, now?"

"I'll give you guys an easy job now, as a reward. You two are on HAMR duty." He pointed left down the long column of tanks in the convoy. "Go see Hooper and tell him to get a HAMR ready. Tell him I ordered you to do it." Finally, he saluted back at us and said, "Dismissed!"

We headed down the direction Narville pointed for us.

"Oh, and Velasquez?" Narville chirped in.

"Yeah?" Rico responded.

"If Colonel Templar were still here, he would be so Goddamn proud."

"Th—thank you, Captain."

I took a look at Rico's dark brown face. He normally wore an angry grimace towards everyone, Helghast or not, but for once, he seemed…sad. Like the "I just went to my best friend's funeral" kind of sad. Don't take my word for it, but I think I was starting to see tears in Rico's eyes, which is like seeing tears on a Hig's face. Impossible.

He quickly snapped his eyes towards me and growled "What the Hell are you lookin' at?"

"Nothing! Nothing! Just…zoned out for a second."

"Yeah, I thought so. Come on. Let's go meet this guy Hooper."

Jesus, even when he's sad, Rico's not someone to be pissed off. I wouldn't blame him for being sad, though, as he and the Colonel go way back. As we walked together, I actually did take the time to zone out for a minute and think about all the stories I'd heard about Rico's service with the courageous Captain Jan Templar and the badass Legionnaires...

Whew! Man, this chapter took a long time! The next chapter is going to be a flashback of Rico's service with Templar, Luger, and Hakha during Killzone 1, and how it led up to Templar's death in Killzone 2. I haven't decided on an exact number of chapters yet, but I'm planning the last one to be about Visari during his trial and execution on Vekta. How should I write that? YOU LET ME KNOW! Feel free to give me any ideas via E-mail or reviews, and I'll be more than happy to read them! And, as always CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM ONLY! NO FLAMES OR TROLLS!


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